Crosswalk.com aims to offer the most compelling biblically-based content to Christians on their walk with Jesus. Crosswalk.com is your online destination for all areas of Christian Living – faith, family, fun, and community. Each category is further divided into areas important to you and your Christian faith including Bible study, daily devotions, marriage, parenting, movie reviews, music, news, and more.

Finding Peace under Pressure

We’re living in a “right now” world. Every day we face pressure, stress, and multiple demands. We have no peace because we’re being pulled in every direction with no time to stop and evaluate objectively where we’re going. We end up living from moment to moment, week to week, paycheck to paycheck. We live by the seat of our pants. We wing it. And we hope it’ll work out okay.

But my concern is, living the way we live, where are we going to end up 10, 15, or 20 years from now? In the short term, we can run the rat race. We can live at a frantic pace and try to experience and accomplish everything right now. But in the long term, that’s devastating. If we allow ourselves to be pulled in every direction by life’s demands, ultimately we will get nowhere.

I want much better for you. I want you to end well. I want you to finish as God intended you to finish. I want your visions to become reality in your life. I want you to have a plan and a clear list of priorities about how to say yes to this and no to that, for it’s the people who can say no to the good and yes to the best who finish well.

How do you balance life’s demands?First, let’s look at biblical priorities. I wish I could tell you there was a book in the Bible called First Priorities, but it’s just not there. Instead, we will glean them out of what are called the Twin Epistles - Colossians and Ephesians - which were written about the same time.

Ephesians was written to instruct the church how we’re supposed to live our new life in Christ in a fallen, pressure-packed world. The first three chapters are doctrine; the last three are practical. Colossians was written to explain the preeminence of Christ and what it looks like to live out His prominence in every aspect of our lives. Again, the first chapters are doctrine, the last are practical. Note that after the clear doctrinal teaching, both books apply that truth to our lives in a very systematic manner, beginning with a relationship to God and then moving to relationships with others. I believe that’s a divine design.

But there’s something I want you to consider. Often we hear that we should put God first, family second, and so on. But life simply doesn’t work that way. We can’t live a “linear” life. You can’t say, “I’m not going to talk to my wife until I talk with God, and I won’t to talk to my kids until I’ve talked with my wife.” There may be days when you need to spend 15 hours at work and not even see your family, or vice versa.

Instead, I believe we need to view these priorities as concentric circles, one depending on the other. The idea is that you need to be fully connected in your relationship with God so that out of that relationship will flow the love and energy to give to your mate. Then your rich, loving relationship with your mate will overflow into your children, the marketplace, your ministry, and so on.

If we fully cultivate and enrich a relationship with God, then each of the other concentric circles will benefit from the overflow of that relationship. That’s what biblical priorities are all about.

But that takes time and effort. I can’t give you a formula. I don’t know how much time you need with God, or with your spouse and your family. You need to determine that for yourself. But I can tell you the place to begin. We all have 168 hours per week, and if you don’t take control of your time, you’ll never have control of your priorities.

Where does the time go?Wasting hours is just like burning money. Those hours never come back. Give God the first minutes of your day. As you begin each day seeking to know and do God’s will, it will transform you. Read from God’s Word and ask Him to teach you. Pray honestly through the events that are coming in your day and you will have a grid, a means to say yes and no to things that come your way because God will speak to you.

A prioritized life was the secret of Jesus having peace under pressure and power under adversity. And as we live in a world where pressure, demands, and adversity are coming at us from every side, living under God’s priorities rather than living under pressure will bring us power and peace as well.

Chip Ingram is President ofWalk Thru the Biblein Atlanta, GA, and Teaching Pastor ofLiving on the Edge, a national radio ministry.Walk Thru the Biblepartners with the local church worldwide to teach God’s Word in relevant ways for lasting life change. To fulfill this mission, Walk Thru the Bible creates and distributes high quality, award-winning resources in a variety of formats, helping individuals “walk thru” the Bible with greater clarity and understanding. Walk Thru the Bible seminars are taught in over 45 languages by more than 50,000 men and women in over 90 countries;Living on the Edgeradio ministry broadcasts on more than 800 radio outlets reaching nearly one million listeners a week; and more than 100 million devotionals have been packaged into daily magazines, books and other publications that reach over five million people each year.

To learn more aboutWalk Thru the Bible, please visit our web-site at www.walkthru.org.